


the ache

by Ceryna



Series: hold me in your heart (or, the adventures of Sakusa Kiyoomi as told through second person) [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: M/M, POV Second Person, POV: you are Sakusa Kiyoomi and you cannot stop thinking about Miya Atsumu, author is back on her bs metaphors!!!, lots of feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-25
Updated: 2020-05-25
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:27:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24374260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ceryna/pseuds/Ceryna
Summary: Your fingers search out the pillow on the other end of the couch. They reach, turning the square end over end until it lumbers into your arms, clambers up against your chest to muffle thethud-thudin your ribs.You are alive too. You have had twenty years to grow accustomed to this fact, but it does not make listening to thosethudsany easier.
Relationships: Miya Atsumu/Sakusa Kiyoomi
Series: hold me in your heart (or, the adventures of Sakusa Kiyoomi as told through second person) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1869682
Comments: 28
Kudos: 156





	the ache

**Author's Note:**

  * For [honeybakedgrace](https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeybakedgrace/gifts).



> This started as an experiment and then spun into a spiral of yearning feelings that could not be contained. Here they are.
> 
> For Grace. You are truly an inspiration, and I love you for it. Please take this - again, but now with an ending!!
> 
> Please enjoy.

Your eyes stray from the ink on the page in front of you, words blurring together as you fold your book closed. 

You weren’t really reading anyway, you assure yourself, placing the book on the coffee table and scanning the room before you. The walls are warm beige, curtains drawn shut against the murmur of the city beyond them. They do not keep out the rumble of the JR trains, thundering across the tracks with the consistent _ka-clunk_ of a pulse.

The city breathes. It is alive, and it is out to get you. 

Your fingers search out the pillow on the other end of the couch. They reach, turning the square end over end until it lumbers into your arms, clambers up against your chest to muffle the _thud-thud_ in your ribs.

You are alive too. You have had twenty years to grow accustomed to this fact, but it does not make listening to those _thuds_ any easier. 

In the echo of those thuds lives what you call the _ache._ You don’t define it in terms of pain, though on certain days it stings, bruising black and blue inside your lungs. The best way you can describe it is a present loneliness. 

At first, you claimed your perceptiveness worked against you — but that was a gross misconception of your eye for detail, so you turned to ignorance. The problem with willful ignorance, though, is that in order to ignore something, you must first be aware of _what_ you are ignoring. 

And given the impossible nature of Miya Atsumu, as much as you sought to deny and reverse your awareness, you discovered it could not be done.

If you had succeeded, you wouldn’t spend so much of your time thinking about him. He is nothing more than an unattainable idea, a concept you’ve built up in your head with your artist’s imagination — yet you cannot stop your craft. 

The chisel moves in your hand, sculpting fingers from blocks of marble and painting them golden. You have seen them on and off the court, know the strength of those muscles with a precision few others could dare to dream of. _What would it be like to hold them?_ You want to know.

Your mind molds wax, shaping it around a figure you have stood next to, yet never towered over — and pour bronze into it, sprinkling it with dandelions. You know the years of effort that have gone into that body, to tone it with a level of athleticism some would consider genetic. _What would it be like to wake up next to it?_ You want to know.

The piano in your head plays notes of its own accord. Melodies chime and chords strike, but no combination quite replicates the sound of sunlight falling from a mouth that smirks more often than not. While you once thought the tongue lolling out was unnecessary — you still think it is so — you’ve seen it too much, enough that you’ve convinced yourself you want to taste it. 

You clutch the pillow to your chest, pulling your knees up, and try not to picture him sitting at the other end of your couch. He’d laugh at you — in jest, though not unkindly — and you wonder if he’d crawl over to you. If he would tear the pillow from your arms and fold himself in them instead. 

He’d spout some nonsense — _“why’re ya holdin’ tha’ when ya’ve got me?”_ — but he would chuckle, and you’d get to feel that rumble against your ribs. 

This is the ache. It reminds you that you could have a sun living in the cavern of your chest — if you could manage to tell the sun how you feel. 

But you are merely a fragment of time and space, enmeshed into the cosmos light years upon light years away. Who are you to ask the sun to call your name, to shine for you — to cast his light upon you, invite you into his gravity so you may hold him.

_To hold a sun…_ you think the warmth of his radiance might be enough to kill you. Yet you are drawn to him like embers to a campfire — crackling, crumbling to ash and stardust as you wonder how you might be reborn. 

You bite your lip. You know that sound does not exist in space, but if it is created, it will travel. It may take light years to reach your intended destination, but hope swells in your chest, soaring past your collarbones as you unstick your tongue from the roof of your mouth and whisper, testing how the words taste between your lips.

“I love you.”

Your room, of course, does not answer. But a supernova of pickled plum erupts over your tongue, and you wonder — not how, not why, but _when_ he tangled himself in all your favorite things.

You bury your face in the pillow. You do _not_ imagine resting your forehead on his shoulder from behind, nose pressed to the edge of his scapula, inhaling aromas of yuzu and cucumber. 

“I love you,” you try again, the low murmur curving your fingers into your palms until crescents threaten to gouge the skin. The pillow trembles against your chest — no.

It’s _you_ that trembles under this terrible, magnificent weight that anchors you leagues below the sea while also launching you to the stars. 

You have never felt this way about anyone. It has always been volleyball that freed you from your moors — distracting you enough for their presence to dim, so that you could breathe in your blood, sweat, and tears to feel not alone, but _alive._

The ache lives in your chest, and he reminds you that you are living with selfishness. You _want._ You have had more needs than most, but you _want._ You _want_ him to know that you are not a puppet on anyone’s strings, not even your own, and in this moment, you _want_ him to know — you want him to _know,_ more than you are afraid of him knowing. 

Before you are aware, you stand in your front hall, lacing up your shoelaces and clenching the cold metal of your keys into your fist so hard you think they will melt. But you put on your mask, step out into the brisk evening wind, lock your door — and run.

It is not far. Two flights of stairs, the soles of your shoes _thud-thudding_ down slate grey metal until they halt in front of the apartment you know is his. The lights are on inside, and you hold your breath — for you hear the murmurs of a song through the walls. 

The notes are crisp, clear, and pull at your heartstrings with an intensity that makes you lift your foot. _You are still afraid,_ you realize, your heel scraping against concrete as you take a step back.

The singing stops. Then he is at the window — the _open_ window — peering out at you with a raised eyebrow and a smirk that curls the tendrils of the ache around your ribs. “Didja make tha trip down two floors ta complain m’singin’ too loud fer ya, Omi-Omi?”

_Fer ya_ echoes in your ears. It doesn’t carry the same weight as “for you,” and it could never hope to. 

“I love you,” you complain instead.

A beat of silence ensues, in which his dandelion eyes grow round with wonder, his smirk falling into a slack-jawed smile. His tongue darts out to wet his lips, and your fear crumbles beneath your inability to look away.

“Kiyoomi,” he drawls, resting his chin in his palm with an irritatingly dreamy smile. 

You don’t think you’ve heard your full name from his mouth since you met all those years ago. Your heart seizes in your chest, a flower waiting to bloom — and when he looks at you like you're _his_ sun, all those bruises in your lungs heal over.

“M’in love with ya too.”

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed the story (^^)
> 
> comments help fuel my writing! i'd love to know your favorite line, what you liked about the story, or if you'd like to see more second person from me! ^^ 
> 
> I'm on Twitter [here](https://twitter.com/Ceryna_writes)!


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